Why is childcare such a hard sell in the federal election?

Spending on early years education seems to be a tough sell for politicians.

A significant number of Australians, both politicians and voters, see “childcare” as a service to help parents get back to work, despite growing recognition that early education is important for children’s learning and development.

The discussion tends to focus on household budgets and the ability of mum (mostly) to go back to work.

While these are important issues that families face every day, we don’t treat school in this manner – we don’t make decisions about whether children can go to school based on how much their parents work and earn and, likewise, this shouldn’t factor into decisions about young children accessing quality early learning.

Early education as important as school

Education is figuring strongly in the election campaign, but the focus has been on Gonski reforms and the funding each party is willing to make available for schools.

Both the Coalition and Labor have said that we need to target spending on schools. But neither party is focused on where spending can make the most difference – the early years before school starts.

What is less well known is that these performance gaps are can be predicted (and changed) much earlier on.

Given this weight of evidence, investment should be flowing into the early years, but it’s not.

Childcare or learning?

There is a big difference in the way government talks about childcare and the way child development experts talk about early learning.

Research shows that many Australian families are unaware of the science of early childhood learning and development. Quality play based learning with peers in early education and care supports children to develop greater confidence and resilience in school.

As a result, families tend to think of childcare as a safe place for children to be while they work, whereas experts think of early education and care as a place that can amplify children’s learning and help build their social skills and emotional regulation.

The government’s language around childcare subsidies is intrinsically linked to the workforce agenda – the government’s policy is entitled Jobs for Families rather than Outcomes for Children.

Government funding of early education and care is seen as something that helps household budgets, not an investment in children that is essential for future jobs and growth.

Yet early education is an investment that is equally important as our longstanding national commitment to ensuring all young people have access to a school education.

Need for universal access to preschool

Government has a role to play in reinforcing the pivotal role of early learning in building children’s capabilities.

One step in the right direction would be for government to commit to sustainable, ongoing funding for universal access to preschool in the year before school.

There is currently a short-term National Partnership Agreement to provide 15 hours of early education to children in the year before school, but many children are not accessing the number of hours needed to make a difference and cost remains a barrier for some families.

Early Learning, Everyone Benefits is a grassroots campaign aiming to shift community perceptions – government could fast track its impact by committing to ongoing funding to this vital education sector.

The challenge is to ensure workforce participation imperatives do not undermine access to quality early learning for all children.

Stacey Fox

Dr Stacey Fox has worked in research and policy across child, youth and family sectors for a number of years. Most recently, she was Senior Manager of Research and Projects at the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) where she led a large national project focused on parent engagement in learning. She was responsible for the implementation of a range of research projects and collaborative initiatives focused on building a shared understanding of parent engagement, building its profile nationally, disseminating research and evidence about ‘what works’ and supporting better data and evaluation.
Stacey has co-authored significant reports on parent engagement in learning and systems design to support prevention and early intervention; worked in strategic and international social policy, program design and family policy at the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs; and as a lecturer in higher education development at Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Stacey completed a PhD at UWA in 2008.

One thought on “Why is childcare such a hard sell in the federal election?”

Stacey calls on every one who thinks investing in the early years matters, to put aside our differences and self interests and to focus on how we can shift political and community thinking about ECEC from a workforce participation issue to one of public good provision in the same way that schools are funded and regarded as central to children’s learning and development. This starts with asking the question: “What could I do to advocate for that shift?”